"Do not go drinking with this man. You will end up somewhere you were not planning to go..."

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Sunday, 8 April 2012

The Games Factory, Lancashire

Easter weekend, the weather is crap, damp, cold - the usual weather for any holiday weekend in England, summer had come early this year and ended as soon as it arrived. Urban Spaceman, my usual exploring partner, had fled the country in anticipation of the onset of rain for the holidays and I was kicking my feet knowing that with the change of weather my aerial photography session on the Monday had pretty much gone tits up.

With Mrs Hunter off shopping I got her to throw me out of the car on the outskirts of a local town.

So off I go and with a sign like this, you have to go in don't you ??

Didn't look too bad, I don't do solo explores but it wasn't a bad little area, a semi country rural-ish spot halfway between two ex-mill towns.

Then I got inside, what a mess, totally goosed

As I progressed deeper into the building my nerves settled and I felt at ease with my surroundings, I could see some graffiti at the other end of the building and then the sound of a scuffing footstep echoed from the direction of the graffiti I was heading towards.

I paused for a moment, thinking perhaps a fellow Urbexer or perhaps a graff artist and then heard a rasping cough in the shadows in front of me, and then again.

Calmly I took a few steps back, I could see him ? Sat on the floor at the other end of the building, he knew I was here, he must do with the crunching of slates under my feet.

I went to leave the building and the rain was tumbling down, I was totally unprepared for this, two expensive cameras and it was either sit it out or hope the cameras would take the downpour.

I lingered at the door way and thought I'd contemplate over a cigerette, conscious of the run in I'd had the other week with a drunken tramp in Manchester, I had backup that time when Urban Spaceman came to my help - even if was just moral backup.

Hang on, he's gone ? I stood listening intently and all I could hear was the slow dripping of water behind me, so I waited and waited - still no sound from him, so I moved forward towards the far end of the building.

Best foot forward into his lair, all sense of fear or self doubt gone.

Hang on, the floor was different, cleanly swept.

Shit, I had entered someone's home, someone who had disappeared into the shadows, someone who knew every inch and shadow of the building, someone who knows I'm here !!!

I looked around at what lay in this empty part of the building, a large expanse of the cleanly swept warehouse, a bed, an ashtray and all this persons worldly goods. I had no wish to upset this person or play a game of Connect 4.